Pastor Paul Vogt papers Nachlass Pfarrer Paul Vogt (1900-1984)

Copyright Holder: Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich. Archiv für Zeitgeschichte - Archivleitung Paul Vogt (1900-1984) was an evangelical pastor in Switzerland. Paul Vogt was the son of a parishioner who had emigrated from Silesia. After completing his high school diploma in 1922, he studied theology in Basel, Zurich and Tübingen from 1922 to 1926, at the Protestant school in Schiers. He completed his vicarage in the church Neumünster in Zurich. Afterwards, he worked as a parish priest in Ellikon an der Thur (where he married Sophie Brenner in 1927), and from 1929, in the Appenzellischen Walzenhausen. Already during this time Vogt committed himself to social institutions: he founded the charity for the unemployed in the canton of Appenzell and in 1933, built the evangelical social and homeless place Sonnenblick in Walzenhausen. In 1936, Vogt was appointed to Zurich-Seebach. In the same year, he took over the leadership of the Swiss Protestant Aid for the Confessing Church in Germany (SEHBKD) and was co-founder of the Swiss Center for Refugee Relief (SZF). He developed a strong commitment to refugees. Vogt, from 1943 to 1947, took over the refugee office, which had been established by the Swiss Evangelical Church Federation, the Protestant-Reformed Landeskirche of the canton of Zurich and the Swiss Ecclesiastical Auxiliary Committee for Evangelical Refugees. After the war, Vogt fought for an understanding between Christians and Jews. He was the initiator of the Working Group of Christians and Jews, founded in 1945; a member of the Society of Switzerland-Israel; and spoke out for the existence of the State of Israel. From 1947, Vogt was pastor in Grabs. In 1951, he was appointed Dean of the Pfarrkapiteln Rheintal-Werdenberg-Sargans; in 1952 to 1957, he was president of the Protestant school Schiers-Samedan. Vogt served his last parish in Degersheim from 1959 to 1965. After his retirement, Paul Vogt lived in Grüsch in the Prättigau, until he moved to the retirement home in Zizers in 1982 after his wife's death. Private papers of Paul Vogt (1900-1984), Swiss pastor and a refugee aid worker. Consists of manuscripts, press articles, honors, diaries, obituaries, notes by Sophie Vogt-Brenner and Annemarie Vogt, photographs, interviews and publications. Records relate to Paul Vogt's commitment and leadership for charity and assistance to refugees, his work towards understanding between Christian and Jews, and his support for the existence of the State of Israel.